Monday 28 October 2013

PRISM: NSA spooks spied on 60 million Spanish phone calls

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The US National Security Agency (NSA) tapped over 60 million Spanish phone calls in one month as part of its notorious PRISM campaign, according to local newspaper El Mundo.
El Mundo reported uncovering the spy operation after receiving a classified document originally leaked by ex-CIA analyst Edward Snowden. The paper said the NSA tapped 60.5 million phone calls in Spain between 10 December 2012 and 8 January 2013. The taps reportedly did not monitor the content of the phone calls, and only tracked their location and duration.
It is currently unclear if the Spanish government is aware of the phone tapping. At the time of publishing the Spanish government had not responded to V3's request for comment on El Mundo's report.
Spain is one of many countries believed to have been targeted by the NSA as part of its PRISM campaign. Last week, reports broke claiming the NSA was illicitly tracking 35 unnamed world leaders. The identities of the leaders remains unknown, however the German government has asked for clarification from the US government if any of its agencies tapped the phone of chancellor Angela Merkel.
News of the NSA's PRISM campaign broke earlier this year when Snowden leaked a number of classified documents to the media proving the NSA was siphoning vast amounts of web user data from companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook.
The full extent of the NSA's PRISM snooping remains unknown as companies involved have been blocked from disclosing what data has been taken. The NSA has moved to downplay PRISM's significance, claiming its agents only monitored 0.00004 percent of the world's web traffic.
At the time of publishing, the US Department of Defense had not responded to V3's request for comment on El Mundo's report.

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